Dogs!

I.

The next "Baker's Dozen" theme will be "Dogs." So be thinking of that. The way our Baker's Dozen feature works is that readers submit pictures on a theme, from which Yr. Hmbl. Editor builds a small portfolio of a dozen pictures, with an extra one for good measure. These are usually fun. Especially for, um, Yr. Hmbl. Ed., because each morning I get to wake up to your pictures in my inbox.

Please don't submit anything until the formal "Call for Work," which I'll probably have ready tomorrow. (And now that I've said that, it will probably be Thursday.) I've gotten behind on comments again and need to catch up today.

II.

I went out photographing yesterday instead of working like I should. I couldn't resist. It was an absolutely gorgeous spring day: crisp, clean, fragrant air; 70°F (21°C); unusually bright sun and unusually deep blue sky; not a cloud anywhere; and windy. This is one of the best times of the year here, the week when the dandelions are yellow. My flowering trees are in full bloom. I cut the grass (well, some of it) for the first time yesterday and did yardwork for an hour, and enjoyed the day and the weather. All over, the trees are budding out, everything's turning green, and growing things are growing so fast it seems like you see them change in real time. The robins are definitely around—I've seen two pairs mating—but I only have one nesting female so far, in an old nest on a gutter. They seem to be staying away from the new birdhouses, called shelves, that I had made for them this year. It's quite possible they won't move into those until next year—this year they're too new, and robins seem to like nesting sites that are familiar.

One of the new robin shelves, made of cherry, no less. The old nest was on the light fixture—I called it "the high rise," because they had added more to it year on year until they barely had room to fly in under the eaves.

III.

Esther's sister contacted me in the Comments yesterday, saying, "Esther is trying to reach you!" I had inadvertently given Esther a card without my phone number on it. My new shirt is done already. Also, at the urging of a reader who used to work there, I ordered a shirt from L.L. Bean. I will of course find the perfect shirt and then lose a lot of weight so that none of the new shirts fit. That's the way of the Universe. But I'd take the weight loss. I need to get back to my WFPB diet.

IV.

...Speaking of which, I found all my notes from my WFPB experiment. I did two things: stuck to a strict WFPB diet, and practiced "intermittent fasting," also called "time-restricted eating," whereby I didn't eat after 3:00 p.m. every day. That took about three weeks to get used to. I generally ate two meals a day with a big salad in the middle. The day wasn't really long enough for three meals, because I often wasn't hungry when I woke up and didn't eat breakfast until late. I weighed myself twice a day, morning and evening, because, in a scientific trial reported by Dr. Gregor in his book, that's what the people who lost the most weight did. I meant to stick to the eating plan for six full weeks, but ended up staying on it for 18 months. My starting weight kinda depends on what I pick as a starting date, because I had been on a half-assed WFPB diet for a while at the time the strict trial started, but overall I lost about 60 lbs. (~4.3 stone), getting down to 194 lbs. 

Unfortunately then my brother died, I got depressed, and I went off the eating plan. My situation from there has been complicated by heart disease; I was in heart failure for the last five months of 2023 and got my pacemaker in January of 2024. Since then I've been as high as 269 lbs., which is not good for me or my heart, not to mention being perilously close to my all-time lifetime high of 273. I think it has something to do with the fact that my brother's BMI was around 14.4 when he died. He looked like a concentration camp victim or a prisoner from Andersonville, and he couldn't put on weight. But I can't psychoanalyze myself. Let's just say I'm working on getting back to a better lifestyle. My doctor thinks I'm actually an excellent candidate to be on semaglutide (Ozempic) or tirzepatide (Mounjaro) or something similar, for several reasons, but I can't afford it. It's been surprisingly difficult to simply get back to the plan I was on for those 18 months. I've tried multiple times, and keep failing. Very similar, actually, to when I was quitting drinking or smoking. Both of those things were a process that took a long period of many failures before I finally succeeded.

V.

To allow me to attend the Conference last weekend, I took Butters to Nancy's kennel on the hill. Nancy is nearing 80, but she's a dynamo—a year or two ago she went to Alaska and lived in the bush so she could learn to drive dogsleds. She came home with an adopted sled dog named Quartz to add to her own dog pack. She's tiny, has white hair she dyes purple or a rich, bright blue, and her beautiful house has the best view of the Lake I've seen yet. She lets her doggie boarders stay in the house with her and Steve, who is a photographer of local repute and renown. Each time I drive up there, I seem to see all kinds of wildlife. One evening I saw a single wild turkey pecking away in a field, not one but two herds of deer, something resembling a weasel in a ditch, and at one point the road was blocked by a bunch of light-gray, goose-sized birds who didn't seem to want to let me pass. I haven't been able to identify them. Maybe Esther will know. But, as has happened multiple times before, when I repeated the drive up there yesterday with the camera, hoping for luck, I didn't see a living thing. That's that trickster Universe again.

I'll try to process my new pictures today too. I have to wait till dark for that. I just have this sense that in this batch there are going to be a lot of near misses. I don't think I was quite "on." Probably because I haven't photographed in a while. It's like your pool stroke (I cleared all 15 balls this morning in one turn)—you have to keep your hand in! And you're only as good as your most recent day.

Back soon.

Mike

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Comments

[Ritchie Thomson]

Oh good, another Bakers Dozen, I wish you would do more of these as they are fun to enter, and to see the selected ones. I never enter photo competitions generally as I think most of them tend to prefer a certain kind of photograph - high drama, rare subject or extreme conditions. Winning landscapes often seem overworked to me, or to have unnatural lighting that makes me uneasy, too much HDR, etc. Anyway Bakers Dozen is different. One a month would be great, but I would settle for quarterly.

On WFPB diet, I have you to thank for alerting me to this diet, and I have stuck with it ever since, must be 3 or 4 years now. Its made a huge difference to me, weight and health much improved, and I cant imagine going back to 'normal' food. Family and friends think I am mad, but they acknowledge the difference. I hope you can get back to it, and I would suggest reading Dr Gregor's comments on the drugs you mention.

[Patrick Dodds]

"Something resembling a weasel in a ditch." That's me before noon.

[James Weekes]

Are you on Medicare yet? My Medicare covers the cost of my Mounjaro. My cardiologist put me on it two years ago and I have lost 50lbs. Plus my joints no longer hurt and I am off two blood pressure meds.

If you aren’t on Medicare yet, I feel your pain.

[Jeff Hartge]

Wow! When you wrote about your WFPB diet and success, I started down that road. I had success. Although, not quite as much success as you experienced. Unfortunately, my focus on better eating and sleeping was interrupted.

In the fall of 2021, my brother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and passed after slightly more than two years.

My father fell into ill health not long after my brother's diagnosis. He died 4 days before my brother. (They both passed in January of 2024.)

All of that threw me into depression and weight gain. Unlike you, I did achieve my all time high weight in the aftermath of these events.

I am finally feeling "good" again. I am returning to the better eating mode that you inspired me to pursue in the past.

I hope you also find your way back. Wishing you the best.

[Dave]

I wish you luck with the WFPB [whole foods, peanut butter :>)] diet.

My brother changed his diet for various reasons about 18 months ago. He has lowered his blood pressure by about 50 points on the higher BP number and has weaned himself off the worst blood pressure medication he had been taking. (That's the one that "lowered" his blood pressure by slowing down his heart rate. Yeah, that doesn't seem safe to me either.)

The hospitals always put you on cholesterol medicine when you are admitted, as a matter of course. They put him on Lipitor and had to take him off it because his liver enzymes were four times the level that they were when he was admitted!

One doctor afterwards wanted to try Crestor and his daughter (a nurse) told him it was basically the same as Lipitor. It's a good thing his daughter knows about these things!

He takes his blood pressure twice daily and it averages about 115/70. The processed foods do more harm than most people realize. Cut them out and it's amazing how healthy "normal food" can be.

One daughter went to England and was amazed how tasty the food was and how they could eat plenty, yet not feel lousy afterwards.

You have to fight back against the junk food that is making everybody sick.